tartchef

Odd... Death of Autumn Lite, now with Cherry FlavR! As I feared, the cherry & grape amp to irritating proportions here, clashing with the resinous woods. The whole thing is going soapy & bitter, egged on by the sage. Pluuurb.

Oh ifinena, how you spoil me In the vial & wet, Pinched is much lighter & fresher than I was expecting - instead of a cloying foody bonanza, it's very sweet but clear & clean. Caramel, but clear syrup, not the overwhelming caramel of, say, Red Lantern. Lots of bright cinnamon bark - very woody & dry, again not disgustingly foody. The coffee is barely there, just a bracing, bitter whiff. Once things dry down, I can see that the caramel note is actually the tobacco, sweet but becoming more perfumed & leafy with a trace of smoke. Akin to Three Witches, but without the creaminess. Yeah, this is a winner

Nyom. Take the best parts of Samhain & Tamamo-no-mae & you've got HM 2006...Wet, there's crisp, green apple (despite what the description says, this is green, not red, to my nose) & the heavenly combination of Beth's green tea & bamboo notes - fresh & tart & greenygreengreen Left to dry a bit, the pom & elderberry peek out, juicy & a bit thicker than just the apple, and there's that lingering pale sweetness I recognize as rice flower. After an hour or so, the fresh greenness fades & the sage suddenly pops, along with spicy mums & the scent of old, dry wood. Super delicious!

I feared the rose, but this had to be tried... In the vial & wet, Mictecacihuatl is really fresh & sweet, almost fizzy. It reminds me of the prickly pear sorbet we used to make at the restaurant... hot pink, equal parts unctuously sweet & bitingly tart. As it dries, Mictecacihuatl relaxes a bit, and the copal peeks out. The rose is very clean & subtle - just a perfumed edge to things. I'm finding it really hard to pin down this scent - beyond the agave, it's a really seamless blend... tobacco, copal, something just a bit sweet & spicy & woodsy... I really can't stop sniffing this. I don't love it, but it is fascinating...

A spectacularly generous sniffy from the ever-delectable ifinena In the vial: cherry hairspray On the skin (just a dab): The cherry recedes a bit, allowing a heady blend of rose & dark musk to blossom... I get just a trace of the clove, and the cognac is present in a sweet, boozy undernote... Ultimately, nothing I would ever wear, but it conjures a very vivid memory - the "groupie" girls that would frequent the Goth club I went to as a teenager. Torn fishnets, huge spiky black hair saturated with Stiff Stuff, black lipstick & berry Mad Dog

When in doubt, always check TwilightEyes' flickr stream

In the vial, this is very bad - the maple & something akin to Bad Vetiver threaten to amp my headache to migraine proportions. But I am a glutton for punishment, so I dab some on, anyway As soon as it hits my skin, Summer Summoning Spectacular does a 180... it's a gorgeous dried grass scent - the recent clippings toasted by the September sun, but a hint of fresh green underneath - with a lick of smoky maple, not too sweet or cloying. The maple dies down quickly, leaving just the smoke & grass... this is what I wanted out of Scarecrow Very glad I took the plunge - not bottle-worthy, but an awesome Indian Summer-last ballgame of the year scent...

Nyommy Very pale & delicate grapefruit, with a lovely hard sugar & ginger background. Beautifully balanced, too - equally tart & sweet & woodsy... Hungry Ghost Moon is a translucent celadon green scent, fleeting but very calming & soothing... it'd be amazing in a salt scrub coupled with a cool shower. Perfect for when it's almost too hot to wear perfume I'll have to hunt down some more for next summer...

Um. Why in the name of all that is holy did I not try this until now? Oh golly... sugared bluebells & dewy grass, with something a bit deeper & golden lurking, like honey-sweetened tea. Fresh & sweet & clean & wild... it's Selkie, minus the aquatic note, or a kinder, gentler Daiyu, or an Anglo version of Fire Pig... simply put, just stunning.

The original celestial Aries is my knock-down, drag-out, all time Holy grail scent, so the 2007 release has a lot to live up to I don't do well with dragon's blood, so this is a gamble - I fear an Ifrit-style powder explosion... but I am delightfully wrong! 2007's Aries is a lovely blend of sweet honeysuckle (one of the few florals I can wear) & gorgeous black pepper. If I concentrate, I can sense the warmth of the ginger & the resiny goodness of the opoponax, but they are definitely supporting players only. Absolutely no sign of the dragon's blood The bitterness of the pepper contrasts so nicely with the creamy, nectar-y honeysuckle - it's a delicate scent, fitting for the first warm days of spring... Unbelievably pretty - feminine but not in the least bit cloying or overwhelming... SO happy I tried this!

Unfortunately, no access to a coffee pot. Ugh! But thank you so much for trying. I'm currently hiding in a corner. *lol* Isn't that... illegal?! No coffee?! It's lunchtime soon, right?... you can hide til then!

Got a coffee pot at work? This is a real MacGyver, not pretty, but it should work... make a paste of ground coffee, water, and a dab of soap. Massage it into your wrists & let it sit as long as you can afford to be away from your desk. Rinse... and cross your fingers. If you have a can of Oust or Febreeze, give your workspace a squirt to help clear out the BPAL fumage... Been there, it BLOWS. Good luck!

There's something about Goblin Rider that reminds me somewhat of Kathmandu... the sweet pine/ceadry incense. There's definitely a smack of ozone in here, too, but not quite as sharp & man-fume-y as I was expecting. This is working much, much better than I'd anticipated - a cool, dark, incense-&-pine-boughs scent. Very nice - not enough to keep, but I'm glad I braved it.

Red Lantern's caramel made me , so when that's all I got out of the first few minutes of wear, I was a bit put out. Slowly, though, the caramel eases off, allowing the tobacco & cinnamon leaf to peek out - there's a maddeningly faint whiff of black currant, the one note that made me really want to try this. No muguet, thank heavens. Things eventually settle down to a smoky, salty-sweet scent - I can see where Dark Alice got pepper... Mmm, interesting. A bit more fruit & Tiresias might have had me. As it stands, though, it's a good caramel-scented pipe tobacco - tasty, worth taking for another spin or two, but not bottle-worthy for me.

I don't wear traditional florals well, but Beth's more obscure botanical notes have been treating me well as of late... The moonflower/cereus/oleander combination is beautiful, a pale blue-creamy white floral, high & clear. The ivy deepens the background, keeping things from going soapy. No sign of the hemlock, which is fine with me - this is a lovely deep, meditative floral, really capturing the stillness of the night. Beth also gets extra botani-dweeb points for using such a delightful array of poisonous & hallucinogenic flora

I totally agree with Lyrical about the PP #5 similarity - take out the really heavy pumpkin note, and they'd be nearly identical when To Autumn is wet. A deep ivy & spicy woods scent... Once things dry down, the nutmeats & poppy come out, balancing each other nicely - the bitterness of the poppy mimicks that of the brown husks of hazelnuts & walnuts. The apples are subdued, adding a subtle sweet fruitiness. I'm getting something else, almost a dirty coffee note - sounds bad, but it's actually really nice, deep brown, nearly a dry cocoa & soil feel. It's in the same part of the spectrum as Death of Autumn, in a way - I get the same range of color associations, and can see fans of one enjoying the other. The ivy has sadly vanished, but the end result is still really good. It's deeper & warmer than Samhain, less sweet, too. A surprise winner - the real scent of the harvest, the trees, the fields, the earth... Wow.

Ah, now THIS is what I wanted out of L'Autunno... zippy apple, a bit of pithy orange peel, & a lovely base of green woodiness. As it dries, the sassafrass & smoke come out, along with the cider spices. A hair too close to the ubiquitous autumn scented candle for me to wear regularly, but a fun addition to the fall rotation

Woo! Hey, that's green! Fresh grassy sweet clover, slightly bitter dandelion leaves, and a gentle undercurrent of bracing evergreen & birch. Just delightful - it stays very true, not morphing much at all. This would make a gorgeous room scent. Or a body lotion. Or a salt scrub. Or a linen spray... I'll certainly wear this again, and would love my whole house to smell like this - fresh & outdoorsy, a grassy meadow in the middle of the woods on a mild, rainy day.

A risky one for me, given both roses & moss, but frankincense is always a winner, and the hypericum (St John's Wort) & blackberry leaf sound really interesting... Wet, oh man, this is cool... really botanical & green, much more fresh than the description would suggest. I'm getting what must be the SJW & blackberry leaf almost exclusively - fresh & green, but with a sweet, pollen-y air to it. I can tell the roses are lurking - right now, they're remarkably sweet & dewy, but as the oil settles into my skin, they start to go soapy & a bit sour. Not horribly so, mind you, just enough to make me wrinkle my nose. Shame, too - underneath the rose, The Churchyard's a lovely, marshy, fruity botanical. Ultimately, The Churchyard was not the catastrophe I was expecting. In fact, I'm going to hang onto it for a while, in hopes that a bit of aging will get the rose to settle down - if it does, that's two rose scents I can now wear (Katrina van tassel being the other), two more than I'd ever hoped. ETA: Holy cannoli. The rose sat down politely, folded its hands, and vanished into the woodwork Now I'm left with a delicately perfumed blackberry leaf over deep, dark, greenery. Even the moss is behaving. InSANE. I won't wear this often - it's not soapy, but it reminds me of a nice bath cube - but I will keep it.

Wet: Erm. Sour & salty, but blood-warm... dare I say it? Oh dear. This is nothing like the bottle out at Shelldoo's. Where's the pepper & lovely unctuous beeswax? Instead I'm getting something frighteningly similar to Milk Moon '07, minus the tropical fruitiness. The muguet is snaking around the lot like a squit of air freshener - a desperate attempt to cover things up, but instead just clashing horribly. Similar to White Rabbit, but gone terribly, terribly wrong. Utterly dreadful on my skin I had such high hopes for this, too...

Yep, that's my story, too! I spilled a bottle of cheap Avon rose eau de toilette on my bed when I was 8 or so, and have never been able to stomach the smell of rose perfume since. But we may be able to make an exception for Ms van Tassel. Rose, yes, but dampened down by sweet, cold cream & a drizzle of fine white honey. Definitely white rose, too - the blowsy, old fashioned ones that have a faint blush of pink at the throat. As it dries, miracle of miracles, the rose doesn't amp at all - if anything, the honey amps, lovely & spicy, but rounded out by the cream. An unexpected but very welcome success! I won't wear her often, but she'll be a treasured addition to my imp box

I sniffed Blade of Grass in the bottle at Shelldoo's so I knew this would be fabulous... Greengreengreen, and absolutely perfect. That really lush, soft grass that grows this time of year, when the days are cooler & damper - like wheatgrass, almost - scattered with freshly-fallen leaves. Early autumn, the leaves are just beginning to change but the days are still comfortably warm... there was a blast of wind overnight, and there's a carpet of gold-touched maple leaves covering the lawn. You sprawl on your stomach & inhale their scent, oblivious to the dampness of the ground... An absolute, 100% winner.

Olbas oil! Extra Strong Mint Imperials! Seriously strong peppermint, but sweet & smooth, with a good dose of eucalyptus to keep things from getting cloying. There's a trace of something else deep & green - maybe pennyroyal, or geranium - but just a hint. Deeelish, and very effective in clearing up my sinus headache (swiped on the back of my hands & inhaled regularly)

Mmm, yeah, khus! That same glorious spicy dead leaf feel as Death of Autumn, but with a rounder, slightly sweeter feel from the blood musk & amber. If I didn't have DoA, this would be a winner, but I find myself searching for the chrysanthemum & tea & clove... The charred wood is really good here, not overwhelming at all, just a wisp of smoke. After an hour or so, the blood musk starts getting just a bit too flowery for me... If Death of Autumn was almost but not quite right for you, give Chant d'Automne a whirl. If you already have & love Death of Autumn, I really don't feel the two are different enough to warrant owning both.

I skin-tested BVC at Shelldoo's ages ago, when it was first released - all I remembered was that it was strong... massive throw, even outside. Giving it a fair shot this morning, and it's still a very... forward scent. The patchouli & moss combo is deliciously dank & dreary, and for once moss is behaving. The violets are shy, barely perfuming the earthy greenness. Same with the currant - it's hiding in the undergrowth, just a trace of tart, syrupy sweetness. If I was 17 again & wearing Black Like My Soul & cavorting around graveyards murmuring Smiths songs, I'd be all over BVC. Alas, I no longer have the ennui to pull this off